The Reporter
by Awesome Mr.L
Summary: Raymond Benstein has been quiet for most of his life, this due to being because of his father. When he is chosen for his first real CHERUB mission in two years he has finally started talking and this is needed for his mission. Wife and husbands money in bank account missing, husband dead, husbands brother claims to be alive. But Raymond is soon approached by a mysterious reporter.


**Hello, this is Awesome Mr. L, writing his first chapter for FanFiction of a CHERUB book. I have to thank KidKool101 for getting me into this and WeAreAllMadeOfStars for writing such an awesome book I can't give any thanks to two of my friends who, when one of them saw what website I was on, called the other one to see and they walked out of the room in hysterics. Ouch. Anyway this is for Bobby Muchamore.**

**Chapter 1:**

'Cat got your tongue, Bullhorn?' Those were the few words that Ray heard on a daily basis. And it was Ray, not Bullhorn. He had recently become a CHERUB agent after being recruited four years ago when his mom died at birth and his dad committed suicide after one of his daily beat-the-crap-out-of-my-son-and-when-he's-about-to -burst-into-tears-tell-him-to 'spit it out boy'!

This had quite a lasting effect on him and even after being recruited at age eight, going through basic training (quite quietly as a matter of fact) and becoming an agent he still remained silent a lot of the time and never managed to "spit it out".

If you had ever heard of Robin Hood you might know that one of his merry men were called Little John because he was so tall. Ha, ha, ha, well that was a friendly kind of dig, but when they called Raymond Benstein, Bullhorn Boobstein, the way they say it can make grown men sniffle.

So right now his tormentor was a 14-year old, navy shirt with seven missions, six of the missions were recruitment missions which were normally regarded by CHERUB staff as punishments (the scary fact is that in those six recruitment missions he only recruited two people, one of whom had quit on account of being bullied by "a certain recruiter").

Tormentor or Mario Evans was now looming over Ray's head and generating an atmosphere of general ... Mario-ness.

'Cat got your tongue, Bullhorn ?' he said giving Ray what might be regarded as, the hairy eyeball. 'No' Ray murmured under his breath.  
'I'm sorry, what was that Bullhorn? I couldn't hear you over my breathing!' he said attracting the attention of the whole cafeteria. Ray looked up from his Mac 'n' Cheesy-smelling to scan the room for teachers, none in sight.

Mario dropped his tray on the table Ray was sitting on and started striding across the room. 'Who here has heard Bullhorn say more than a sentence?' he said as if verbal bullying was another one of those inspirational talks that people regularly did.

Everyone's hand remained down, Ray had been taught at CHERUB how to defend yourself and how to act and because of this, kids like Mario who, before they had been recruited, had been fat and had low self-esteem would be "swaggering" around and using their combat skills to "rough up" the little CHERUB agents.

'Now as the good person I am' he said carrying on with his **de**-motivational , 'I would like to help all fellow agents settle in'. This earned him a ripple of laughter which lasted about a second because nobody above Mario's age understood the joke and nobody underneath wanted to be roped into the torture.

'But how do I help my fellow agents settle in if I cannot connect with them on a deeper level' Mario continued. Where was this leading? 'So let's ask him a question? What's your favourite colour, Ray?'

Ray hesitated, why did Mario seem to have a change of heart? Maybe he had finally started to think of Ray as an equal? Was it because of the fact he was a CHERUB? Ray did help his partner, Riya, finish the last walk in basic training when they were in Australia an hour ahead of everyone. Ray did possess all the educational and physical skills needed to be a CHERUB agent. But what was Mario playing at?

'Red' he whispered wondering if everyone was in on a joke to laugh at whatever he said or they might all dislike the colour red. 'C'mon Ray' Mario said mocking a pout, 'Speak louder'.

'Red!' he said clearly hearing his voice for quite some time now. The people in the cafeteria gave a murmur of agreement satisfied to at least hear a faint bit of his scouse accent. Of course Ray was born on an aeroplane in the North Atlantic ocean. Meaning he was given three nationalities, British from his father, German from his mother and a nationality that Ray would choose when he turned eighteen.

'That's good' Mario continued, 'What's your favourite movie?'

'A haunted house' Ray replied feeling a slight a sense of warmth towards Mario despite all the physical and mental pain he caused him.

'How old are you?'

'12'.

'Favourite book?'

'Kid swap'

'By?'

'Michael Lawrence'

'What were your parents like?' Mario grinned. Ray gulped, that question had hit a wrong chord. 'What?' Ray said with his mouth feeling moderately drier.

'I saaiiiddd. What were your parents like?'. The room had fallen silent. Most CHERUB agents had at least one dead parent and possibly another arrested or somewhere, where their kids aren't. A lot of the CHERUB's would rather drop dead first before talking about them so this hit Ray by surprise.

Ray felt sick and looked down at his plate, his forehead was dripping with sweat. He stood up, leaving his plate and started to walk out of the cafeteria, then came the torture.

'Spit it out' Mario chanted. 'Spit it out! SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT' some guys around the room who seemed to find this funny joined in.

'SPIT IT OUT' they all chanted as Ray walked briskly out of the room.

_Spit it out.  
Spit it out.  
Spit it out.  
Pee-wee.  
Pee- wee.  
Spit it out, Raymond._

Ray tried to block out all the thoughts of his life. CHERUB, Mario, "spit it out". Ray slammed his door shut when he reached his room.

'SPIT IT OUT!' Ray said inhaling deeply. He stared up at the ceiling, tears forming in his eyes, 'Why me?!' he slumped onto his bed. 'Why'.

'So while you think of who can join you on your mission' Zara Asker, chairwoman of CHERUB, said, 'While you read the mission briefing'.

Grace nodded and opened the mission briefing, with Raymond in the back of her mind.

**Hope you like that little taste of the next chapter, which will be up when my teachers realise that they should stop with the homework.**

**Disclaimer thingy: I don't not not own CHERUB (yes I'm aware of these typos).**


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